Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor - Martyr (PlayStation 4) review "I feel like a martyr without a cause for sticking with this game as long as I did. "

First things first, Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor — Martyr is one hell of a long name for a video game and I’m not being paid by the word, so I’ll be shortening it to Martyr for the rest of this review. Efficiency!

Secondly, I have to admit I have virtually no actual knowledge of all this Warhammer 40,000 stuff other than how German death metal band Debauchery seems to have utilized it as the foundation for their musical output. I guess I did read somewhere that a person could consider the movie Event Horizon to be related to it, at least in concept, and that makes it cool in my eyes, but yeah…don’t expect me to be remotely versed in what’s what as far as this deal’s gods and characters are.

I can tell you that if you’ve played a game in the Diablo series, you’ll probably know what to expect from this game. Just make it more repetitive and less fun and you’ll have a pretty firm grip on what you’ll get from Martyr. You’ll pick from a number of classes and battle all sorts of monsters and corrupted soldiers in a universe that might be the least desirable potential future that humanity can imagine. And considering current events, that’s saying something!

There are all sorts of demonic races being held at bay by wonderful fun-loving people who will enact a purge on you and everyone you’ve ever cared about if they have even one iota of a suspicion you’re up to no good. Even if said “no good” is a result of how some of those demons are very capable of using mental domination to force you to do their bidding. Whatever, you’re still corrupted and it’s time to take out the trash!

You’ll be controlling an Inquisitor, which apparently means you’re a total badass whose mere presence likely indicates bad times are in store for pretty much anyone who isn’t on the right side of the man versus monsters conflict AND who isn’t acting properly deferential. You’ll have a few classes to choose from — my pick was a gun-wielding Crusader. I had the armor to be a powerhouse capable of enduring a hefty amount of damage and I also could shoot the hell out of foes before they could get within melee range. While I don’t know what my experience would have been with other classes, I can say that this dude felt a bit overpowered. Most missions scale to your level and I hardly ever felt overwhelmed or at risk of death unless one particular (and very rare) enemy showed up that had multiple brutal attacks and also could call up little drones to provide it with a shield.

Your mission involves you investigating the Martyr, a giant ship that mysteriously reappeared after vanishing some time in the past. This leads you to discover secrets, including one that could possibly give humanity a powerful trump card in its war. With the minor little issue that all the work that went into this little secret could easily be considered heresy and in the world this game resides in, being considered a heretic can easily lead to minor inconveniences like death or having your mind wiped.

While the plot unfolds in a meandering sort of way, you’ll travel through all sorts of levels with the goal of killing every damn thing in your way. And let me tell you, a lot of stuff is determined to get in your way. My trigger finger got a real workout playing through Martyr, as I could count on regularly being assaulted by various demons and other critters, as well as soldiers. Some foes depend on getting up close and personal in order to damage you, while others have various guns or other forms of projectile attacks. Then again, you also will obtain tons of weapons and armor, too, which you can equip or (more likely) sell between missions. While there are lots of numbers and attributes attached to most of this stuff, I just paid attention to each item’s level and changed gear when I obtained something possessing a higher level than what I currently was using. As an Inquisitor, I’m here to kill stuff, not do research.

As you progress through the game, you also get the ability to do things like improve your equipment via crafting and partake in all sorts of optional missions. Regardless of how you access those, you’ll be placed in a small stage and have to either kill everything or destroy certain targets, with a few also having you rescue soldiers. Playing this game via PlayStation Plus, I also noticed a few free DLC mission chains added to the mix, giving this game a lot of content along with its lengthy main campaign.

If only things weren’t so boring. While part of the blame for this could be a result of how either the game is pretty easy or my choice of class was overpowered, the lion’s share must be given to the game itself. There are a lot of missions in this game — a number that only will grow if you delve into those optional ones. On the other hand, there are not so many settings for them, so you’ll spend lots of time wandering through the corridors of spaceships or traversing the ruins of cities or visiting a handful of other locations. Repeatedly. While there apparently are various factions of evil space marines and demonic creatures, you’ll notice definite similarities when confronting them in battle.

Overall, Martyr gave me way more of a feeling of repetition than other Diablo-type games I’ve played. I mean, at heart, that’s what those games provide. You leave your safe town or hub and kill a bunch of stuff to gain levels and combat perks, while also obtaining a bunch of equipment and other goods that may benefit your character’s combat ability or at least will add to your growing fortune so you can perhaps purchase something superior to what you’ve been unearthing from the corpses of fallen foes. And you’ll do this over and over and over again until you’ve beaten the game and perhaps progressed even beyond that point. But the good games of this sort at least attempt to mask that repetition with a large variety of monsters that you’ll challenge in a diverse array of locations so that each time you sit down, you’ll at least feel you’re experiencing something different.

Here, though, it really feels like you’ve seen most of what this game has to offer within a couple hours and then you’ll simply be doing it over and over again until you’ve gotten though all five chapters of the campaign and as much of that optional content as you can stomach. Overall, this is a competently-made game and I was able to pick it up for two or three missions on a nightly basis, but it felt like I was doing so more out of a sense of duty instead of because it was giving me legitimate enjoyment. And that’s not exactly the way to pry a glowing recommendation out of me.

Staff review by Rob Hamilton (July 17, 2024) Rob Hamilton is the official drunken master of review writing for Honestgamers.